Making the Move to an Outbound Telephone Sales Operation-All You Need to Know

When I'm Calling You ... Will You Answer True?

Making the move to an Outbound Call Operation

Since there are so many meaningful initials and acronyms floating around in business today, let's start by giving the subject matter here a REALLY COOL acronym - MOCO (Moving (to an) Outbound Call Operation). Has sort of a coffee bean 'flavour' to it.

Now, down to business.

Organisations of all shapes and sizes are becoming more proactive in their approach to telephone selling.

Incidentally, what does 'Proactive' mean? It is one of many hyped words/phrases that tend to float around the world of business - like 'empowerment' and 'synergy'. It means, simply: To control a given situation or to create a new situation.

So, Your Inbound Call Centre/Help Desk can indeed be a proactive environment (add on sales, special offers, new product information and more). And, when you elect to commence MOCOing you will be creating a new 'situation'. However, a word of caution:


If your current inbound operation is not truly proactive - customer friendly, technologically sound, team focused and well managed - you have virtually no hope of establishing and successfully launching an outbound operation.

There are some extremely important questions to ask, for a start:

Why are you doing it?

Build and manage better relationships with established customers?

Re-gain lost accounts?

Gain new business?

Obviously the above will be achieved through a variety of methodologies to gain best results.

Will it be a stand-along operation or will you LINK it to other key areas within your organisation?

For instance, those of you who want to reduce the workload of your field sales force in dealing with marginal, distance or no-growth accounts - adding outbound telemarketing becomes as simple as A, B, C.

A accounts (and potential A's) are managed by your field sales force.

B accounts (and potential B's) are managed by your outbound telemarketing team. Also, they can support the field sales force with A account backup/support.

C accounts are encouraged to contact your Customer Service Call Centre. If this is a proactive Call Centre, then these customers will be well serviced.

Also, a combined customer service/telemarketing team can have a dramatic impact on bottom line results by offering customers a total service structure.

Who will we have on our team?

Let's start with Charlie - been with the company 25 years, as a sales 'rep' (I hate that word, but it is appropriate for now) and has found the going tough in the last 5-6 years (or he has been in accounts, warehouse, front counter - whatever). Will Charlie be a good telemarketer. Probably not - one example, of a salesperson making six calls a day moving to an environment where they are expected to make six calls an hour, should suffice!

How about Kylie - been a CSO for 10 years and has a 'natural' ability with customers but gets a bit stressed at certain times or with certain people. How will Kylie go? Probably not all that well.

The point here is - you may not be able to staff your outbound call centre entirely with your current staff. There are a number of processes to go through - interviewing, testing, career appraisal, discussing performance standards and training. I personally observed a major organisation totally fail in their bid to establish a telemarketing operation because they did not have the right people (all internally chosen from other departments with lessening staff requirements).

On the other hand, many of your customer service people may view a telemarketing role (say as part of a mix in their career) as a tremendous career boost.

Who will the Leader be?

Do you have a leader ...

who will take ownership and responsibility? who has experience and expertise (or who has the ability to learn quickly)? who will commit to long term goals and a successful outcome? who will gather the resources necessary to sustain momentum? who will develop a top team to ensure success?

What is the PURPOSE of the Move

Can everyone involved 'see' the outcomes in terms of departmental growth, better customer relationships, greater revenue and improved results?

Can everyone involved understand the benefits to customers - internal and external - that this move will bring?

Is everyone positive and excited about the move?

Is there a common VISION, PURPOSE, OBJECTIVES and STRATEGY to ensure a successful shift.

Is the organisation culture right to ensure success?

Who else needs to be involved - internal/external?

Does the leader and their management team have the commitment, co-operation and collaboration of senior people within the organisation?

Are other key people within the organisation taking responsibility and accountability to ensure a smooth transition?

Who will you use externally (if not fully covered internally) for IT/Telecommunications transitions, recruitment and training? What is their experience, what are their successes and who will work with you to achieve your goals?

How will you monitor progress?

Can you measure the success of the move in real terms?

Are you able to benchmark progress either through key performance indicators, results achieved to date, the implementation process, or a combination of all three?

How will your current systems and structures be changed or modified?

Will you need to radically alter your current contact management system to grow and evolve with as the operation expands?

Will you be linking your inbound/outbound operation? What other areas are in this link - the sales force, marketing, accounting, warehouse, branch network?

Do you have unique needs that will require optimising or altering your current IT and telecommunications?

How will you distribute, share and synchronise customer/prospect information to relevant people/departments?

How will you allow your team to fully exploit the power of new/altered technology with a minimum of fuss, expense and learning time?

For those of you currently undertaking this task of MOCOing - all the best. Things have changed from a number of years ago and outbound telephone sales has become recognised, as it should be, for its professional approach, its vital link to the company and for the skills of its people.

As mentioned in the model above, LEADERSHIP is still the key to success and continuing Customer Satisfaction must be the main outcome.